In the third episode of Riverdale, the concept of a ‘sticky maple’ is introduced.

Veronica goes out on a date with football player Chuck – but the next day at school, she’s taunted by other girls, who ask if she enjoyed her ‘sticky maple’ last night.

Why is maple syrup so valuable?

Canadian maple syrup for sale in downtown Victoria, British Columbia, Canada (Picture: Getty)

Many Canadians will defend the importance and value of maple syrup – one Reddit user said: ‘Do you know how valuable maple syrup is? [It’s] a valid cause for a serious feud’.

The Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist refers to the summer of 2012, when it was discovered that six million pounds of syrup, worth around $18 million, had vanished.

According to Bloomberg, grade A syrup trades at around $32 per gallon, which makes a barrel of the stuff worth $1800 – around 13 times the price of crude oil.

The pair had taken a selfie together during their date – but Chuck had added maple syrup over her half of the photo.

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‘It’s a Riverdale thing,’ Kevin shrugged at the time – and, when confronted, Chuck told Veronica to see it as ‘a badge of honour’.

Veronica was subject to the ‘sticky maple’ treatment in Riverdale (Picture: Netflix)

The act of superimposing maple syrup onto a girl’s face in a photo taken during a date is clearly an act of visual slut-shaming in Riverdale – although all Veronica and Chuck had done was kiss, the football star had exaggerated what went down.

Veronica is not alone in being subject to this treatment – and the show makes it very clear that other girls who have fallen victim to the ‘sticky maple’ story didn’t perform any of the sexual acts the football boys suggest they did.

Some believe the definition of a sticky maple refers to a man giving a woman a facial during sex – which would fit with the image of Veronica’s face covered in the syrup.

According to Urban Dictionary, a sticky maple is a sexual act where maple syrup is used as a lubricant during sex.

‘You want to use what?’ (Picture: Myles Goode)

Afterwards, the woman is given oral sex after the man has climaxed inside her.

However, these uh, graphic definitions probably doesn’t apply to the scene in Riverdale.

The concept of pouring maple syrup over a girl’s face seems to symbolise an act of conquest for the football boys – which would explain why Chuck described it as a badge of honour.

How is maple syrup connected to Canada?

There is nothing more Canadian than maple syrup – its flag is a maple leaf.

The native peoples of eastern North America valued processing the sweet sap of the sugar maple long before European settlers arrived.

An Iroquois legend explains the discovery of maple syrup – an Iroquois chief yanked his hatchet out of a maple tree and set off for a day of hunting, not noticing the deep gash his blade had left in the tree.

A liquid trickled from the tree all day and collected in a bowl that was leaning against it.

The next day, the chief’s wife noticed the bowl full of liquid, and used it to cook venison stew, thinking it was water.

A sweet stew was created, and this happy accident began the culinary tradition of curing meats in maple syrup.

Canada’s early settlers watched the native people tap maple trees to obtain the sap that was processed into syrup, and the maple syrup industry was born.